Chapter 1 Rebirth of Amethyst

Gu Fei figured he'd seen all the girls from Rebirth of Amethyst. But aside from a select few, he couldn't match names to faces. This Bing Liuli, for example, was a complete mystery to him. He'd arrived at the north gate, the mailbox was deserted, and he'd claimed the spot. He looked around, but didn't spot any familiar Rebirth of Amethyst faces.

Just then, Liu Xia sent a private message, asking if he needed any help.

"Nothing much, it's just that I don't have Appraisal, so I'm looking for someone to help," Gu Fei said casually.

"Oh, my Appraisal skill used to be pretty strong, but I lost levels and it dropped," Liu Xia said regretfully. In theory, the penalty for dying was just losing levels and potentially dropping equipment, but because skills were linked to levels, losing levels had a corresponding chain reaction effect on skills. For example, Appraisal had to reach level 10, and the player had to be level 30. If you lost levels, the original Appraisal skill at level 10 wouldn't be retained; it would be reduced to the highest level possible at level 29.

But, putting Appraisal level aside, what Gu Fei needed now was character appraisal, and that had a strict, unyielding requirement: the player's level had to be higher than or equal to the appraisal target. If it weren't for that, Gu Fei would have preferred to ask Liu Xia, who already knew his secret, for help, rather than calling out in the guild.

When Gu Fei first joined Rebirth of Amethyst, the girls in the guild were all at relatively low levels; only Yue Liu's Rain was level 30. But so many days had passed now. Maybe the Unsmiling incident last time had spurred the girls on, making them more motivated to level up. When Gu Fei looked at the guild member list again, there were already several level 30s. This Bing Liuli was one of them.

"I'm by the mailbox," Gu Fei sent a message to Bing Liuli.

"I see you," Bing Liuli replied.

Gu Fei immediately looked around and, sure enough, saw a friendly-looking girl walking toward him from not far away.

"Hi!" Bing Liuli greeted Gu Fei as she approached. This was their official introduction.

"What do you need me to appraise?" Bing Liuli asked proactively.

"It's like this…" Gu Fei kept a close eye on the city gate as he briefly explained the situation to Bing Liuli. "As long as you can find this person, I'll take care of the rest." Gu Fei smiled and copied the information Jian Gui had provided, sending it to Bing Liuli.

"Oh, I see. I hope I can help!" Bing Liuli said. At level 30, the highest level of Appraisal was level 10, but Bing Liuli was currently only at level 8, so she lacked some confidence.

"Thanks," Gu Fei said.

"You're too polite. We're all friends here!" Bing Liuli said with a smile. Since she was willing to come all the way to help, Gu Fei believed she was being sincere and not just making polite small talk. He felt a warmth in his heart.

"You're a mage too!" Gu Fei said after looking at Bing Liuli's profile.

"Yeah, just like you," Bing Liuli nodded in reply.

"Can I take a look at your weapon?" Gu Fei asked.

"Oh…" Without a second thought, Bing Liuli handed her staff to Gu Fei.

The level of trust involved was something Gu Fei, a newbie to online games, didn't quite grasp. In online games, equipment was even more valuable than life. Offering to lend equipment was almost like saying, "Lend me your life for a moment." A sensible person would never make such a request, no matter how close they were to their friend.

Gu Fei was forthright. Although he understood the principle, he hadn't thought that much about it when he spoke. He just wanted to see the attributes of the staff used by a level 30 mage, so he could get a direct sense of how strong the Dark Night Flowing Light Sword really was. So he subconsciously asked to borrow it, and then easily borrowed it. He casually looked at it and handed it back.

Bing Liuli's staff was a very ordinary white-grade item, with extremely average stats. Gu Fei, without thinking much about it, took out the staff Yue Liu had given him and handed it to her: "Yours doesn't seem as good as this one?"

Bing Liuli took it and looked, nodding, "It's much better than mine."

"Then you can use it!" Gu Fei said.

It was common for people to abandon the old for the new in online games, so Bing Liuli wasn't too surprised. She was even less polite, nodding and saying, "Then I'll borrow it for now." It seemed she really didn't see Gu Fei as an outsider.

Gu Fei continued to crane his neck, eagerly looking toward the city gate. Bing Liuli followed his gaze, appraising the passing players, but didn't find anyone suspicious. Before long, a group of six people walked from the main road outside the city toward the city. Judging from their equipment, they consisted of a thief, two mages, two archers, and a priest, basically matching the class configuration Jian Gui had described.

Gu Fei's eyes lit up, and he quickly pointed them out to Bing Liuli. Bing Liuli had also noticed the group earlier. She nodded, waiting for the six to enter the range of her Appraisal skill.

The six entered the city gate, their gazes quickly falling on the mailbox. They walked toward it. Gu Fei felt the answer was about to be revealed. Sure enough, Bing Liuli quickly cast Appraisal, checked the results, compared them, and nodded at Gu Fei.

The six had already arrived. Gu Fei had just sent a message on the mercenary channel: "Target acquired!"

"Hey, are you mailing something? Can you move aside?" the thief said politely to Gu Fei. Mailing things required hand-on operation at the mailbox, and Gu Fei was blocking the mailbox. Hearing the other party speak, he quickly and politely stepped aside.

The other party gave Gu Fei a friendly smile. Gu Fei also felt a sense of closeness to them. He asked by the mailbox, "What should I call you, brother?"

"Dead Dream," the person said to Gu Fei with a smile as he opened the mailbox.

"Good name!" Gu Fei smiled, suddenly turned sideways, raised his leg, and kicked Dead Dream in the shoulder.

The first thing that flooded Gu Fei's mind was depression.

He was too weak! This was a problem that had made Gu Fei depressed countless times since he entered the game. But every time it happened, it still made him interrupt all his thoughts and sigh deeply.

Such a powerful side kick only made Dead Dream stagger a few steps to the side. If this were reality, he would have sent a guy of his size flying five meters with that kick. Gu Fei thought gloomily.

But this kick that Gu Fei was so dissatisfied with left Dead Dream and his companions dazed. The hostility in the kick seemed obvious, but the damage it caused was quite friendly. Nowadays, some players without attack power would often play such rough jokes with their friends. Anyway, it was just a game, and taking a tumble wouldn't hurt their bodies. But the problem was that Dead Dream didn't know Gu Fei at all, and didn't seem to be close enough to joke around with in such a manner.

Dead Dream looked at Gu Fei blankly for a moment. Gu Fei, having completed his self-examination, flew over and kicked him again.

This time, Dead Dream saw it clearly and tried to dodge, but for some reason, he didn't avoid it and was kicked right in the forehead by Gu Fei. The damage was still negligible… But having someone's foot printed so clearly on his face was really a bit scary. Dead Dream raised his face, showing off the big footprint, looking somewhat panicked.

His five companions finally reacted at this moment. The priest was the first to heal Dead Dream.

"Fireball, shoot!"

Archers needed to go through the process of drawing and nocking an arrow before attacking, but the mage was more straightforward, just needing to use his mouth.

Two fireballs rushed toward Gu Fei. Gu Fei stepped forward and ran wildly. He used the time of the fireballs' tracking effect to distance himself from the archer. The archer's arrows were much faster than the fireballs, and Gu Fei needed some buffer to dodge.

The sound of a bowstring rang in his ear. The archer's arrow had also been shot. Gu Fei saw it clearly, and with a light twist of his body, both fireballs and both arrows were easily dodged.

Everyone was dumbfounded. How precise did the calculations and skills have to be? In their view, it was as if Gu Fei had calculated that the fireballs and arrows would arrive at the same time.

But in fact, when four attacks came from the same direction, whether they came sooner or later, or arrived at the same time, the target was the same. Gu Fei only needed to move away from the position he was originally aimed at, and it was naturally easy to dodge them all. What he was waiting for was the disappearance of the fireballs' tracking effect. As for the fact that the arrow and fireballs arrived together at the end, honestly, that wasn't something Gu Fei controlled. They should have marveled at how exquisite their unintentional coordination was.

Gu Fei, having dodged this wave of attacks, began to counterattack. He hadn't taken the initiative to attack earlier for only one reason: Gu Fei had had enough of PK values. So he hoped the other side would attack first, so he could take advantage of the rule that counterattacks didn't increase PK values.

He dashed in front of the group of people. The archer was nocking a second arrow, and the mage had just opened his mouth to cast the spell "Fireball" a second time. Gu Fei reached out and drew his sword, swinging it in a circle in one breath. The archer's arrow went off course, and the mage had just shouted the word "Fireball," but it was extinguished before it could ignite.

After a mage summoned a fireball, it wouldn't just float there waiting for you to shout "Shoot." From "Fireball" to "Shoot" was a complete spell-casting process. If attacked during this process, the spell-casting would be interrupted immediately.

Just then, the sky above the heads of the group who were already in a chaotic mess suddenly changed color. Gu Fei and the two mages, hearing the sound from above, changed their expressions. Looking up, sure enough, a descending fire wheel was forming. Gu Fei was startled and quickly looked back. Bing Liuli was holding up her staff.

"Don't drop it!" Gu Fei shouted. A flash of fire had already passed in the sky. The fire wheel formed, and then descended toward the ground.

"Ah!" Bing Liuli screamed, her face ashen.

Gu Fei hadn't expected her to suddenly offer assistance, but she had thought that Gu Fei, as a mage, had actually stuck close to the enemy after pulling away. She had prepared this fire wheel for those people, but Gu Fei had also squeezed in.

"Skyfall Fire Wheel, descend!" At the time, she was afraid it would be too slow, so she had said all five words in one breath. How could she have kept the final attack command? Now she could only watch Gu Fei and those guys together receive this burning fire wheel.

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The three thousand words I didn't update on the 23rd during the day, I just finished writing…